4. Genre Study with Layered Book

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4. Genre Pre-Reading Strategy with Layered Book – Initiating Strategy
Rationale:
    • This strategy will help me because I want to teach students to recognize Genres of stories, novels, etc. This will help me teach them about major Genres of fiction and non-fiction and sub-Genres such as essay, poetry, biography, mysteries, realistic, and historical fiction. Students are asked questions concerning Genre on the ISAT; therefore, I feel this is another reason to use this pre-reading strategy.
Courses in which it could be implemented:
    • This is a min-lesson I use prior to ISAT so that students will understand Genre. I think that this strategy would be mostly for reading/Language Arts area where reading of different Genres takes place.
Diverse learners:
    • All learning styles would benefit from this pre-reading strategy on Genres. Those students who enjoy working in a group, tactile, and kinesthetic learners definitely would benefit from this reading strategy lesson. Students are able to talk and discuss together, look through the various books and articles, and visually see the different types of writing
    • I did, however, only use this reading strategy with my Accelerated Language Arts class. I just haven’t had time yet in the average classes and I’m not sure how the inclusion or struggling readers would do. I may try it with the inclusion students and I’m sure I’ll get around soon to using it with the average Language Arts classes.
Procedure:
    • Implementation is as follows:
      1. I use my Genre listing of books which are divided up between various Genres. I found a website that has this listing of books according to Genre. I asked the librarian to pull books we have in our library off of the Genre list. She pulled about 50 books off of the Genre list. I added to the list with some books from classroom sets. Therefore, I had 4 sets of 20 books from various sub-Genres under the two main Genres of Fiction and Non-Fiction.
      2. Next I organized the books so that I had a listing of each book and Genre and I distributed various books representing all of the Genres to all four groups.
      3. I reviewed with the class what Genre means and we discussed as a whole group the various sub-Genres. I passed out a handout with the list and definition of all the Genres we would use in this mini-pre-reading strategy lesson and we read and gave examples together.
      4. Next, I explained that we would do a Genre Book Study and make layered books to list the main Genre, sub-Genre, and titles of the books according to where they belong in their Genre Book.
      5. I modeled for students how to make the book and then explaining how they would alphabetically record in this Genre Book the main Genre, then sub-Genres, and the titles of the books that fit into each category of Genre.
      6. Students got into groups of 4 to 5 student and I gave them 20 types of books, essays, etc. which they were to discuss and classify into the various sub-Genres on my note-taking grid sheet. (example in the binder).
      7. Students began to classify the books with me floating from group to group scaffolding students where needed and appropriate. Students wrote the titles of books in the note-taking grids under the classification where they belonged.
      8. Once the books were classified, students began making their layered book, alphabetizing the main Genre and sub-Genres and placing the titles of the books from their note-taking form.
      9. Students named their books and decorated them as well. I was able to assess their knowledge of Genres from grading their layered genre books.
Potential Issues:
    • I thought their may be some confusion with historical and realistic fiction and with poetry, whether it was fiction or non-fiction. However, students didn’t have many questions. They were able to classify based upon reading the backs of the books, looking through the books, or from the titles themselves.
References (Bibliography Information & Cross reference the Resource Binder):
Content Area Reading 465 - Darci Harland Lesson (2009).

All resources above are Cross Referenced in Content Area Reading 465 Eportfolio Reading Strategies Binder.